Craft House Client, The Britely, Featured in Town and Country Magazine
The Pendry West Hollywood is Like a Real-Life Slim Aarons Photo
The design mind behind London's Annabel's takes Los Angeles with 1950s glamour.
By Olivia Hosken
“The new edition of Annabel’s in London opened a mere three years ago, but it has already become a touchpoint for the jet set, a shorthand that if you aren’t part of the Kensington set, you at least warrant an invitation to their private club. (I was once trapped on the receiving end of a British socialite’s monologue that could only be summarized as “all of the parties I went to at Annabel’s and what I wore to them,” such is the social equity of the Mayfair institution.)
This infatuation is in no small part to the opulent design by Swedish architect Martin Brudnizki, who conjured an over-the-top wonderland rife with Murano glass, bespoke De Gournay wallpaper, a blue-chip art collection, including a Picasso in the entryway, and enough plasterwork to fill a Venetian palazzo.
So it would be easy to compare Brudnizki's design for the newly opened hotel Pendry West Hollywood and its attached private social club The Britely, to Annabel’s, but that would be missing the point.
For one, Brudnizki started working on the L.A. hotel eight years ago, but for another, he doesn’t believe in trying to catch lightning in a bottle. “Each space has its own narrative, and I approach every project with its own distinct story.”
With Pendry West Hollywood, the story was obvious: Hollywood. But in a town whose own myth-making is part of its business, the impetus was on Brudnizki to come up with a plot twist. “The brief was to create a hyper-glamorous place different from anything else in L.A.,” Brudnizki said. “I wanted it to have a hint of 1950s Hollywood, but to also create an immediate immersion into the Pendry itself.”
Before a guest even walks into the Pendry, they pass Sunset Jewel, a sculpture by Andy Cao and Xavier Perrot that appears to be a tree, except that the leaves are crafted from mother of pearl and a Swarovski crystal geode is embedded into the trunk. In the lobby, 70’ Icosahedron by Anthony James, a mirrored geometric shape that distorts and reflects light, which intensifies the sensation that you are in a place to be. The interiors are colorful, fanciful, mirrored. "I'm always concerned that things could become unfashionable, so I like the classics—color, reflection and light are always current," Brudnizki said.
Areas like the rooftop pool feel as though they were pulled straight from a saturated Slim Aarons photograph, with a dash of L.A.'s signature pink and teal, and in communal areas, there are cheeky touches like gold leopard pillows. “I want the décor to make people to smile, to feel like this is the best time they will ever have,” said Brudnizki. However, the architect also knows when to pull back: in the hotel’s two Wolfgang Puck restaurant spaces, everything is slightly turned outward to sweeping panoramas of Los Angeles. “It is an iconic location and when you are that high up, it is all about the views—especially at night when you can see all the lights snaking off into the distance.”
It's a far cry from Mayfair, as an L.A. institution should be, with the added benefit of a sun-soaked rooftop and, best of all, admission to its delights (aside from the members' only The Britely), is just a reservation away.”